Follow Friday: GDC Speakers Special

[We’re nearly just a week away from GDC in San Francisco – and as you can probably tell the entire dev industry is on shutdown finalising speeches, finishing demonstrations, booking plane tickets and arguing with hoteliers.

But before your diary pages start resembling blocks of ink, make sure you check out the speaker sessions below. They’re most interesting. Each of the speakers are on Twitter too, so get following. We’ll do another one next week if we have the time.]

Neil Alphonso

@thrmoptc

GDC TALK: Level Design Documentation

When and where: Tuesday 10:00- 6:00 Room 2016, West Hall, 2nd Floor
Track: Game Design

The Splash Damage designer will be speaking with Ed Byrne (Imba) to argue the reasons for understanding and using planning materials in game projects, how to go about creating them, and why sometimes the old ways are the best ways.

Tameem Antoniades

@superninjatam

GDC TALK: Performance Capture – A creative Primer

When and where: Thursday 11:30-12:30 Room 2016, West Hall, 2nd Floor
Track: Visual arts

Team Ninja creative director Tameem will discuss the practical and aesthetic challenges of using modern performance capture technology to create cinematic cutscenes. Attendees will learn how to conceive, cast, plan, and direct motion capture shoots from early brainstorming all the way through to the final renders.

Cindy Au

@shinyee_au

GDC Talk:A Strategic Approach to Crowdfunding
When and where: Tuesday 3:35- 4:00 Room 2003, West Hall, 2nd Floor
Track: Independent Games Summit

Cindy, the community director at Kickstarter, wil offer advice on launchiung successful campaigns on the crowdfunding website. Tips for developers include setting fundraising goals, shooting compelling videos, designing a well-crafted reward system, and planning promotional strategies.

Stephanie Bayer

@NSSteph

GDC Talk:Community Commodity
Whre and when: Tuesday 4:30- 4:55 Room 132, North Hall
Track: Social and Online Games Summit

Stephanie, the customer engagement lead at PopCap, will discuss how to turn a group of customers into a thriving game community.

Ian Bogost

@iBogost

GDC Talk:Making Games as Fast as you can think of Them
Where and when: Monday 11:50-12:15 Room 2009, West Hall, 2nd Floor
Track: Game IT Summit

Outspoken games theorist Ian Bogost will present a new game authoring tool that creates small and simple games in seconds based on a concept-map based authoring paradigm and a game generation artificial intelligence.

Marty O’Donnell

@Martytheelder

GDC Talk:The Emotional Puppeteer: Uncovering the Musical Strings that Tie Our Hearts to Games
Where and when: Wednesday 2:00- 3:00 Room 3010, West Hall, 3rd Floor
Track: Audio

The man behind Halo’s widely admired score will offer insights uncovered through user research about how people really feel in response to music in games.

Jenova Chen

@jenovachen

GDC Talk:Experimental Gameplay Sessions
Where and when: Friday 2:30- 4:30 Room 3014, West Hall, 3rd Floor
Track: Game Design

Jenova, along with a fleet of fellow indie developers, will showcase a selection of surprising and intriguing prototypes made by innovation-minded game developers from all over the world. By demonstrating games that defy conventions and traditions in search of new genres and ideas, this session aims to ignite the imagination of all game makers.

Jonathan Blow

@jonathan_Blow

GDC Talk:Financing Options for Smaller Games
Where and when: Thursday 2:30- 3:30 Room 130, North Hall
Track: Business, Marketing and Management

Taking part in a panel debate with indie developers, businessmen and investors, Jonathan will help compare the various funding routes open for smaller developments and discusses the challenges and opportunities they offer.

Nicholas Lovell

@NicholasLovell

GDC Talk:Financing Options for Smaller Games
Where and when: Thursday 2:30- 3:30 Room 130, North Hall
Track: Business, Marketing and Management

Nicholas will be joining Mr Blow (above) but we thought it was only fair to mention the GamesBrief director too. He’s a prolific tweeter, an experienced public speaker and a odd investor-journalist hybrid. Meet him. Say hello. Tell him we recommended him.

Ben Counsins

@BenjaminCousins

GDC Talk:When the Consoles Die – What Comes Next?
Where and when: Wednesday 5:35- 6:00 Room 3009, West Hall, 3rd Fl
Track: Business, Marketing and Management

The experienced Ngmoco Sweden boss will discuss how consoles can – if possible – survive in an era of flexible monetisation models and open systems. One for headline writers too!